“I’ve always loved the idea of being a teacher.”

Evyan Green shares his story of coming to AJMS and the experiences he’s had in his life that helped him become a full time teacher. He discusses his experience so far in the school as a first-year teacher at AJMS and what he plans in his future moving forward. Mr. Green also shares the impact of the things he’s done leading to where he is now.

Transcript:

Luis Villalobos: So, the first question I was going to ask is what made you come to AJMS?

Evyan Green: Why I came to AJMS? I got offered a job at the end of last year to come to AJMS. I had to have a whole mock teacher thing where I pretended to be a teacher for my whole interview as well. And I did really well in that last year where I was still at an Animo Florence Firestone. So, I’ve been doing that well. I got offered a job to come here and be a full-time sub until I transitioned to full-time teacher and doing that ever since I got here, I’ve liked being here. It’s closer to where I live at. I think the environment is better than where I was at last year as well. I think there’s a lot of opportunity here for me to thrive as well.

LV: That’s cool. What college did you go to?

EG: I went to Cal State Northridge. My undergraduate degree was in electricity and technology for TV production. Then after I got out of that and got to the real world, things got a little harder to be in TV production, especially around COVID. So I transitioned to things I also had an interest in. I’ve always been working around kids before that. So I was at the YMCA before that. I was a coach before that. It was a different thing before that. So I think teaching just kind of naturally fit for me. Then being able to be an actual teacher on my own was like its own awesome thing now.

LV: What is something you wanted to do before teaching?

EG: Before teaching, I wanted to either be an engineer or a nurse for a long time. I still have a deep passion about those two different things. So anytime I get to integrate those two things into any lesson or my classes, I do that as much as I can because I do love those things with the bottom of my heart for sure. Anything in STEM I think is a great idea for a career on top of everything else. So definitely that’s what I wanted to do before I became a teacher. But now that I’m a teacher I love it. I can’t see myself doing anything else.

LV: What do you think of the school?

EG: The school environment? The school as what?

LV: Like the school in a whole.

EG: I think the school is.. decent. I think the school is trying to find its voice still a little bit. I think they’re kind of getting stricter on things because they’re trying to find their voice a little bit in different areas, which is why we don’t have other sports and stuff like that yet. But I think it’s getting better. I think the school has a strong starting point. It asked a lot of its employees and people who were here at the school. And so because of that, I think it’s sometimes going to run into issues because of that.

LV: Is there something you want to change about the school?

EG: I think the school could be a little bit more lenient as far as like extra things you want to do with students. I think when I was in middle school, more or less because it was a public school, there were a lot more opportunities that us as students presented to staff members, right, and we were able to run those things as students. I think that kind of responsibility that is kind of lacking here outside of finally having a student council here, I think there’s a lot more opportunity that could be held at the school that they’re not utilizing that maybe one day we could make happen.

LV: Do you think anything in your life umm, affected you in wanting to become a teacher?

EG: I had great teachers growing up, honestly. My teachers always looked out for me growing up. I’ve always loved the idea of being a teacher. Like I can honestly not tell you that I would have wanted to be a teacher when I was younger. Because I always saw what they go through, all this stuff they went through with kids and how to manage that. I always looked hard to me. So I definitely, like I definitely didn’t want to be a teacher initially. But I had a lot of good teachers growing up. I have a lot of people who have mentored me a lot. I’m still friends with some of my teacher-friends to this day, obviously. And I think teaching is a unique job, that’s nothing like it, based off of those experiences, like I really love doing this job right now.

LV: How did graduating college affect what you wanted to do?

EG: Graduating college made it easier to be a teacher because the requirements to be a teacher after you graduate college aren’t as strong or stern because once you kind of have your degree, it’s kind of a commitment that you can show that you can do something for four years, right? And that’s kind of what college is kind of about outside of everything else. So I think that was the easier transition because being able to commit to being a teacher full-time and doing everything a teacher does. It was easier for me to do now that I’ve done college.

LV: If there’s anything you would want to do when you were younger, do you think you’d be able to do it now?

EG: I think it’s being able to be back in sports. So I’m still around sports now to this day. I love STEM things, so anything I can do to implement STEM in teaching, I’ll do that. I can even do it with my tech class, math class, do whatever I can with STEM for that. Implementing new technology, I do that all the time. Like you all see in my classes, I have like lights and stuff, all kinds of cool stuff now. I do whatever I can to implement STEM and technology, whatever I can. Outside of that, like there are ideas I have that flow around, that flowed around to other teachers and staff that hopefully get passed one day. But hopefully I know one thing you all want of me a lot is to be the basketball coach and be a sports coach, right? And hopefully that can make that happen because I think that’s something that you all deserve, you know, after all the work you all put in all these years.

LV: What do you think about the kids in our school?

EG: The kids at the school umm are coming off of COVID. So I think there are mixed attitudes with the kids at the school because these kids are coming out of a once in a lifetime thing that happened to everybody in the world that they have no idea how to navigate now. So their critical wires, they’re missing. And some kids, like pretty much all you guys, may or may not have a big impact on you. So I think that kind of makes it hard in different ways for you all to be a teacher right now in this day and age. And that was like a big thing when I first started teaching a couple years ago as well. But I think one step at a time, I think a good thing Green Dot does is try to be all about you all, right? So I think that’s a big thing that I see that I’m trying my best to give my best to you all. Because you know, you deserve it. And the only thing you deserve it, but you all should have a chance to be what you want to be in life. I think this is a big step towards that.

LV: Thank you, Mr.

EG: Of course.